Digitized Collections - Joplin City of Wealth

There are three ways to look at this book - a browsing collection of thumbnail images, an index to all of the individual subjects, and a keyword index to all of the data included in the descriptions. When you retrieve the large scale image, click on the "Description" tab at the top to see more information. For many of the images we have included the architectural style of the building - especially of the private residences - and a brief note about whether or not the building still exists and what occupies the site.

In the eleven years after the first pictorial survey of Joplin was issued in 1902, the city grew substantially, especially in an upward direction. The Connor Hotel, Newman’s Department Store, and the Frisco Building had risen to dominate the city’s skyline. This 1913 booklet devotes the majority of its 44 photographs to businesses, manufacturing facilities, and other commercial enterprises, many of them not pictured elsewhere on this web site. The 1902 and 1913 booklets together present a portrait of a city quite sure of itself and its place in the universe. Joplin was minting money for the mine owners and anyone else who had managed to latch onto a piece of the profits being pulled from the ground. In 1913, Joplin truly was "the city of wealth, industry and opportunity" for Joplin business owners and entrepreneurs.

This project has been made possible by a Library Services and Technology Grant administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the office of the Missouri Secretary of State.